


Rope-hearted Conversations

by LadyAhiru



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Jaskier is Rapunzel or is he, Jaskier is a Damsel in Distress but hes actually BAMF, M/M, Marriage, Not betad we die like my dignity, Rope Bondage, Story within a Story, True Love's Kiss, bed time story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 17:47:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAhiru/pseuds/LadyAhiru
Summary: When the whole Family meets during Winter Lambert tries to write down the story of how his brother Eskel married his other Brothers bard. Jaskier, quickly decides he will do a much better job of telling the story.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Eskel/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Rope-hearted Conversations

“When little Buttercup had been a child his family had been cursed. Now as far as curses went this one was not all too bad at all, it just involved little Buttercup being dressed up as a princess and locked away in a tower until his soulmate would come to free him and defeated the Monster that lived under his bed.”

Jaskier looked over his friends’ shoulder as the youngest Wolf Witcher was writing down the story while narrating it out loud at the same time.

It was Jaskiers first Winter at Kaer Morhen, his first Winter after finding Geralt again, and more importantly, his first Winter as a married man. He had been nervous, when Eskel had expressed a wish for them to winter at the Wolf Witcher Keep, high up in the mountains this year, after spending last year at the coast, far west, for a very long and satisfying honeymoon.

Reconciling with Geralt had been much easier than the young bard had anticipated, his oldest Witcher friend eager to apologize and to do better in the future, their friendship easily rekindled and blooming once more. Ciri had remembered him from his visits to Cintra over the years and thus he quickly became Uncle Julian, a title that filled him with more love and joy than any he had held before.

Still, Jaskier had been nervous, since he was not just here as Geralts best friend but Eskels newlywed husband and yet the other Witchers had welcomed him into their family with open arms, smiles and in Lambert's case cheeky wits. He had formed an easy-going friendship with the youngest Wolf Witcher and his boyfriend, who was also an outsider and they were close enough now that he could easily huff and correct Lambert.

“That’s not how it happened Lambert. As usual, you are full of shit.”

“Oh really?” Lambert grinned, a bit loopy, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Then why don’t you tell it, Buttercup.”

“Oh yes please Uncle Julian! Please! For me? As a bedtime story!” Little Ciri knew exactly how to wrap any of the adults around her little fingers and this time was no exception.

Putting his hands on his hips Jaskier nodded and gestured for everyone to sit down before he himself took place upon his husband’s thick thighs and cleared his throat. Eskel smiled brightly, while Geralt braided Ciri’s hair, eager to hear Jaskier tell a tale as well, as Vesemir and Aiden played chess together, while still listening with almost childlike concentration.

“Once upon a time….”

Jaskiers eyes almost glimmered golden in the candlelight as he started to spun his story.

_“Where do we start? Well at the beginning you say. Fine my dear._

_There once was a Viscount, his name was Alfred and he was a very dapper young man. His hair was golden as the summer sun, or liquid flowers, or as his future wife would tell him, golden as a fairy’s smile. His eyes were green like trees, or river stones, or as his future wife would tell him, as green as the Seas of Avalon. His future wife had skin as pale as milk, and eyes as brown as the fallen leaves of the last summer day and her sharp features were surrounded by glimmering golden-red locks, like the most beautiful summer flowers and she smelled of cinnamon and lily’s.”_

“Ohhh was she a Fae?! Was she!? Tell me Uncle Julian, pleeeaaaaase.”

Ciri sat up straight, making a grabbing motion at Jaskier who smiled brightly at her eagerness. She almost fell off her adopted father's lap with her wiggling which made Geralt softly chuckled behind her.

“She sure was my dear.” Jaskier smiled as his husband’s warm arms wrapped around his midsection and pulled him closer against his chest.

“Now, where was I….ah yes…”

He cleared his throat as he continued.

_“The Viscount met his future Viscountess on a hot summers day in a beautiful glade. It was love at first sight and when they kissed all the birds sung for them and golden rain dripped down from the heavens. Alfred took his lovely wife home and because she smelled like warm cinnamon, he named her Cassia as it meant cinnamon in the old tongue of her people._

_Now Cassia loved the human world and she loved her husband dearly and their wedded life was bliss for a while until they learned that they could not have a child together. They had tried long and hard but still, Cassia was not with child and a small shadow rose over their marriage.”_

Ciri wiggled on Geralts lap and made a sad tiny sound that had Jaskier suppress a smile. Vesemir had left the room only to come back with hot mulled wine for the adults and a cup of tea for his little granddaughter, while Lambert had taken his place on the lavish sofa, Aiden curled up under a blanket beside him, their hands laced together as they waited for the story to go on.

Eskel pressed a tiny kiss behind Jaskiers ear and nodded at Geralt who smiled at his brother and best friend, happy that everything had worked out well for all of them, full of happiness that all of his family sat together like this.

_“One day when the land was as barren as the Viscountess, heavy snow had been falling for weeks the young woman walked into the forest. There she wandered until she found a magical circle of icy mushrooms and there she knelt down to pray to her former people. See when she gave her hand to the Viscount, she had to leave all of her magic behind and become human herself so she had no magic of her own left. Young Cassia sat there in the snow for hours until she had no more tears to give until finally, a creature made out of ice and bones appeared in the circle._

_“Lost one.”, it called her with a horrific voice but Cassia was not afraid. She was proud, a child of summer and with a warm smile, she raised her head and looked the winter fae right in the eye. The Winter Prince was impressed by her courage and so he heard her out. He listened to her pleas to have a child and finally, they made a deal._

_“As your blood will feed the ice in my veins lost one so your womb will fill after you laid with your husband tonight and in fall your son will be born. Right between summer and Winter. He will be strong and healthy until his 40 th birthday when his heart will truly be tested.” _

_Cassia nodded and took her small dagger out of her elegant pouch and cut her hand and dropped thick droplets of blood into the circle, giving the fae access to wander the earth one day for each drop of blood, during his season. This is why sometimes in May after spring has arrived there is still a chance of heavy snowfall. When the last drop hit the icy snow and melted the ice, the cut on her hand crusted over with a layer of frozen crystals and scarred a mark her son would also carry as a sign of the pact._

“Ohhh like the one on your hand?”

Nodding Jaskier showed Ciri the inside of his left hand where a thin line connected his pinkie finger with his thumb. Now both Geralt and Eskel knew that the scar had come from a bar fight Jaskier had had with a few Witcher hating Patrons, years ago. It had involved a broken bottle of Rotgut, two ducks, a Soup Bowl and a Woollen Scarf and whenever Jaskier retold that specific story both Geralt and Eskel had to fight back tears from laughing.

_“The Winter Fae kept his word and soon Cassia was with child, her husband overjoyed until the day his son was actually born. You see the young boy had dark brown hair and eyes so blue and cold they looked like hard winter ice, even as he grew his hair stayed chestnut like the nuts in fall and not a blonde strand in sight. From that day on Alfred kept a polite distance from his wife and child, still naming the young boy, Julian, his heir but not engaging with him otherwise._

_As the years went by the boy grew up tall and healthy and with a deep love and affinity for music and song and so after he had studied his passion at all the best schools his father’s money could afford him, he went out into the world where he met his best friend who was a famous monster hunter.”_

“That’s you and papa!”

“It sure is my dear!” Geralt snorted amused as he wrapped his daughter in a warm blanket.

“Go on, Uncle Julian!”

Laughing Jaskier let his head fall down against Eskels strong shoulder.

_“They became such good friends that they travelled for a very long time. For almost twenty years they would keep at each other’s side. They went to the north where they fought Griffins and the east where they tamed a Unicorn for a princess, and then to the south were the young bard saved a country from the war by saving a prince from boredom.”_

Eskel snorted ungracefully, aware that the prince in question had been disowned because he and Jaskier had been caught pants down by his mother the queen of Lyria and the crown going to his younger brother, therefore really prevent a war between the brothers even if Jaskier had cured the young lads’ boredom by sinking to his knees.

_“Then the young bard, who wasn’t actually so young anymore asked the monster hunter to go west with him to see the coast but the monster hunter did not want to go so they decided to part ways for a while and the bard went on his own.”_

A small shadow passed over Geralts face, still bitter with himself that he had been so harsh and grateful that his best friend had forgiven him and that he had found a way to do better.

“But did they…they became friends again, right papa? They did reunite? Like you and Uncle Julian?” Ciri turned her head, her deep eyes full of fear that Geralt quickly dispersed by nodding fast. “Of course, they are always going to be best friends, brothers even. And…. they made up?” He looked up at Jaskier who smiled warmly and gave him a tiny nod, putting Geralts own doubts and fears at ease.

Taking a sip from his mulled wined and wetting his dry lips Jaskier took a deep breath as he talked on.

_“So young Julian took his lute and his share of the money they had made during their grand and vast adventures and bought himself the prettiest of horses. It was grey but not dirty grey no this gelding was grey like fluffy clouds in the wintertime and when our young hero rode on him it felt like flying so he named the horse Pegasus and they also become fast friends. For a while, Julian was happy even without the monster hunter but he missed having a muse at his side to sing about, yet he kept travelling west to see the coast. In an instant, the young man fell in love with the vast blue sea when he first laid eyes on it and he rented a small cottage at the sea to spend his 40 th winter there.”_

“Oh no….”

“No?” Amused Jaskier brushed a blonde lock, out off Ciri’s face.

“But…when he is forty, is that not when the Winter Fae, the Ice Prince, will come back?” Ciri’s eyes shimmered with tears as she grabbed tightly onto her blanket, small hands clutching in earnest, afraid how the story might end, already forgotten that it must end well since her uncle was nowhere telling it.

“It was indeed sweetheart, but you see…” Jaskier laced his finger together with Eskels hand, their silver rings making small clinking sounds as they rubbed together. “You see our hero was saved by his own prince and whisked away. Don’t worry my dear, for our story has a happy ending.”

Relieved Ciri leaned back against her adopted father, letting out the breath she had been holding in anticipation. Aiden who had become close friends with Jaskier over the last year, closer maybe even than Geralt in a way that only another outsider could have become wrinkled his forehead. Something about Jaskier story rubbed him the wrong way but he could not tell what it was, just a weird tingle in his gut so he ignored it and listened on.


End file.
